Like many undergrads, Laurin Liu doesn’t know how to cook. The twenty-one-year-old, who majors in history and cultural studies at McGill University, can scramble an egg and boil a mean pasta, but that’s about it. She has cooked rice, by her own account, once or twice in her life (“It turned out really badly,” she said). At a dinner a few years ago, when a friend handed her an onion to dice, she started to peel it like an orange.

Why have we forgotten about those British labourers from the 19th century who stood up and asked for change?

Some time ago, a group of angry people got together to figure out what to do with their anger. They had been put out of work by forces beyond their control. They didn’t like the state of things. Those in power told them to adapt or die, but the angry people decided that this was a false choice. They deserved employment. They deserved dignity. So they fought back, destructively and violently at times, drawing endless condemnation in the media, as well as measured support. But the police fought back even harder, and the burgeoning movement was crushed under the boot heels of state and industry. Today, we even make snide little jokes about the whole episode.

I also have a short profile of the actress Alison Pill in the new issue of BULLETT, a thick, glossy New York magazine. And back in December I had a 1,500-word piece in Reader’s Digest about so-called “Lost Canadians.” Neither piece is available online.